Method and system for browsing, searching and sharing of
personal video by a non-parametric approach

ABSTRACT

A method for determining a predictability of a media entity portion, the method includes: receiving or generating (a) reference media descriptors, and (b) probability estimations of descriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors; wherein the descriptor space representatives are representative of a set of media entities; and calculating a predictability score of the media entity portion based on at least (a) the probability estimations of the descriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors, and (b) relationships between the media entity portion descriptors and the descriptor space representatives.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/041,457, filed on Mar. 7, 2011, which claims the priority of U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/311,524, filed on Mar. 8, 2010,which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In recent years, there has been an explosion of visual informationincluding personal images and video. Personal cameras today areaffordable and portable, and enable shooting video either as portablecamcorder (e.g., Flip), pocket still camera and camera-phones (e.g.,iPhone). This enhanced portability and increased ease of use enablepeople to shoot video casually at any occasion. This creates anexponential growth in the amount of generated personal video. Althoughpeople are shooting more and more video, there is not a matchingincrease in the amount of viewing or sharing of personal video.

The internet video revolution has made a considerable impact in makingvideo widely available to anyone. However, while large companies havegrown by providing internet video services (e.g., YouTube, Hulu, Blinkxetc.) they provide a comprehensive solution only for viral video,TV-shows and movies. Personal video is left without any realcomprehensive solution and thus viewing and sharing personal video isvery limited. In contrast to other kinds of internet video, personalvideo is initially very raw and boring and thus not suitable forwatching or sharing. In addition, personal video is completelyunstructured, and thus can only be browsed primitively (manualforward-backward). Lastly, personal video does not contain meaningfulmeta-data and therefore cannot be searched. These problems, which createa poor user experience stand in contrast to other videos in the internet(e.g., viral video in YouTube), which can be searched, browsed andshared.

When compared to other kinds of internet video, personal video has aninherent problem that each personal video has a very small cycle ofinterest (few friends and family). As a result, the few viewers of eachsuch video will not supply enough textual information and meta-data toenable textual mining engines (e.g., Google). Thus, while other forms ofinternet video gain a significant amount of textual meta-data fromviewers, personal video remains raw and mostly non usable. In addition,personal video is mostly not edited and not produced, which creates hugefiles with boring content. As a result, besides being difficult totransmit, share and upload their required bandwidth and storage space isexpensive relative to the minimal or zero amount of viewing they cangenerate.

There are many publications and patents involving partial solutions tothe problem of browsing, searching and sharing personal video. Forinstance (Method and system for searching graphic images and videosn.d.) provides a method and system for searching in images and video. In(System and method for adaptive video fast forward using scenegenerative models n.d.) a method and system are presented for adaptivefast forward in video using a specific approach. The work in (Analysisof Video Footage n.d.) presents a method for extracting segments ofinterest from video, which are useful for a table of contents. The paperin (Emiliano Acosta and Luis Tones and Alberto Albiol and Edward Delp2002) presents an approach for utilizing face detection and recognitionfor video indexing. The paper in (Oren Boiman and Eli Shechtman andMichal Irani 2008) presents an approach for classifying images. Thereare many other works dealing each with specific aspects of the problemdiscussed above. While there are many partial, ad hoc solutions to theproblem of browsing, searching and sharing of personal video there is nosingle unified solution for handling this problem. Due to the magnitudeof the problem and the large number of required modules, any practicalsystem for solving this problem, which uses many ad hoc solutions, wouldbe extremely complicated, inflexible and not scalable. However, partialsolutions to this problem are inadequate: For instance, without beingable to automatically edit and produce personal video, users would notbe interested to share the raw footage, which eliminates one of the maindrivers for using personal video. Without searching capabilities, andconsidering the exponential increase in personal video data, users willnot be able to locate interesting parts in their personal media.Similarly, without browsing capabilities inside video and betweenrelated video users will not be able to explore their vast personalvideo library. Therefore, although partial solutions for the problemsdiscussed above exist for more than 20 years, it is hard to point on asingle usable system for browsing, searching and sharing personal video.This lack of suitable solutions explains the relatively tiny fraction ofpersonal video, which is actually shared in the Internet.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method for determining a predictability of a media entity portion, themethod may include: receiving or generating (a) reference mediadescriptors, and (b) probability estimations of descriptor spacerepresentatives given the reference media descriptors; wherein thedescriptor space representatives are representative of a set of mediaentities; and calculating a predictability score of the media entityportion based on at least (a) the probability estimations of thedescriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors,and (b) relationships between the media entity portion descriptors andthe descriptor space representatives.

The method may include calculating distances between descriptors of themedia entity and the descriptor space representatives.

The calculating of the predictability score of the media entity mayinclude calculating a weighted sum of probability estimations of thedescriptor space representatives, wherein weights applied for theweighted sum are determined according to distances between descriptorsof the media entity portion and descriptor space representatives . . . .

The method may include generating the probability estimations given thereference media descriptors; wherein the generating may includecalculating, for each descriptor space representative, a Parzenestimation of a probability of the descriptor space representative giventhe reference media descriptors.

The method may include calculating the predictability of the mediaentity portion based on reference media descriptors that represent mediaentity portions that precede the media entity portion and belong to asame media entity as the media entity portion.

The method may include calculating the predictability of multiple mediaentity portions of the media entity and detecting media entity portionsof interest.

The method may include generating a representation of the media entityfrom the media entity portions of interest.

The method may include defining the media entity portion as a mediaentity portion of interest based on the predictability of the mediaentity portion and on at least one out of a detection of a cameramotion, a detection of a camera zoom or a detection of a face close-up.

A method for evaluating a relationship between a first media entity anda second media entity; the method may include: determining apredictability of the first media entity given the second media entitybased on (a) probability estimations of descriptor space representativesgiven second media entity descriptors, wherein the descriptor spacerepresentatives are representative of a set of media entities and (b)relationships between second media entity descriptors and descriptors ofthe first media entity; determining a predictability of the second mediaentity given the first media entity based on (a) probability estimationsof descriptor space representatives given first media entitydescriptors, and (b) the relationships between first media entitydescriptors and descriptors of the second media entity; and evaluating asimilarity value between the first media entity and the second mediaentity based on the predictability of the first media entity given thesecond media entity and the predictability of the second media entitygiven the first media entity.

The method may include evaluating the relationships between multiplefirst media entities and multiple second media entities based on apredictability of each first media entity given the multiple secondmedia entities and a predictability of each second media entity giventhe first media entity.

The method may include clustering first and second media entities basedon the relationships between the multiple first media entities and themultiple second media entities.

A method for classifying media entities, the method may include:receiving or generating (a) media class descriptors for each mediaentity class out of a set of media entity classes, and (b) probabilityestimations of descriptor space representatives given each of the mediaentity classes; wherein the descriptor space representatives arerepresentative of a set of media entities; and calculating, for eachpair of media entity and media class, a predictability score based on(a) the probability estimations of the descriptor space representativesgiven the media class descriptors of the media class, and (b)relationships between the media class descriptors and the descriptorspace representatives descriptors of the media entity; and classifyingeach media entity based on predictability scores of the media entity andeach media class.

A method for searching for a feature in a media entity, the method mayinclude: receiving or generating first media class descriptors andsecond media class descriptors; wherein the first media classdescriptors represent a first media class of media entities that mayinclude a first media feature; wherein the second media classdescriptors represent a second media class of media entities that doesnot comprise the first media feature; calculating a predictability scoregiven a first media class based on (a) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given the first media classdescriptors, and (b) relationships between the first media classdescriptors and descriptors of the media entity; calculating a secondmedia class predictability score based on (a) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given the second media classdescriptors, and (b) relationships between the second media classdescriptors and descriptors of the media entity; and determining whetherthe media entity may include the feature based on the first media classpredictability score and the second media class predictability score.

The method may include searching for the feature in multiple query mediaentities by repeating, for each media entity of the multiple mediaentities, the stage of receiving or generating first media classdescriptors and second media class descriptors; wherein the first mediaclass descriptors represent a first media class of media entities thatmay include a first media feature; wherein the second media classdescriptors represent a second media class of media entities that doesnot comprise the first media feature; calculating a first media classpredictability score based on (a) probability estimations of descriptorspace representatives given the first media class descriptors, and (b)relationships between the first media class descriptors and descriptorsof the media entity; calculating a second media class predictabilityscore based on (a) probability estimations of descriptor spacerepresentatives given the second media class descriptors, and (b)relationships between the second media class descriptors and descriptorsof the media entity; and determining whether the media entity mayinclude the feature based on the first media class predictability scoreand the second media class predictability score.

The method may include detecting media entities of interest in responseto a detection of the feature.

The method may include searching for a feature that is a face.

A method for processing media streams, the method may include: applyingprobabilistic non-parametric process on the media stream to locate mediaportions of interest; and generating metadata indicative of the mediaportions of interest.

The method may include adding tags to the media portions of interest.

The method may include generating a representation of the media streamfrom the media portions of interest.

The method further may include detecting media portions of interest inresponse to at least one additional parameter out of: (a) a detection ofa change of focal length of a camera that acquires the media; (b) adetection of a motion of the camera; (c) a detection of a face; (d) adetection of predefined sounds; (e) a detection of laughter; (f) adetection of predefined facial expressions; (g) a detection of anexcited voice, and (h) detection of predefined behavior

The method may include generating a trick play media stream that mayinclude the media portions of interest.

The method may include finding media portions of interest that aresimilar to each other.

The method may include tagging media portions of interest that aresimilar to each other.

The method may include editing the media stream based on the mediaportions of interest.

A computer program product that may include a non-transitory computerreadable medium that stores instructions for receiving or generating (a)reference media descriptors, and (b) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors;wherein the descriptor space representatives are representative of a setof media entities; and calculating a predictability score of the mediaentity portion based on at least (a) the probability estimations of thedescriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors,and (b) relationships between the media entity portion descriptors andthe descriptor space representatives.

The computer program product can store instructions for calculatingdistances between descriptors of the media entity and the descriptorspace representatives . . . .

The calculating of the predictability score of the media entity mayinclude calculating a weighted sum of probability estimations of thedescriptor space representatives, wherein weights applied for theweighted sum are determined according to distances between descriptorsof the media entity portion and descriptor space representatives . . . .

The computer program product can store instructions for generating theprobability estimations given the reference media descriptors; whereinthe generating may include calculating, for each descriptor spacerepresentative, a Parzen estimation of a probability of the descriptorspace representative given the reference media descriptors.

The computer program product can store instructions for calculating thepredictability of the media entity portion based on reference mediadescriptors that represent media entity portions that precede the mediaentity portion and belong to a same media entity as the media entityportion.

The computer program product can store instructions for calculating thepredictability of multiple media entity portions of the media entity anddetecting media entity portions of interest.

The computer program product can store instructions for generating arepresentation of the media entity from the media entity portions ofinterest.

The computer program product can store instructions for defining themedia entity portion as a media entity portion of interest based on thepredictability of the media entity portion and on at least one out of adetection of a camera motion, a detection of a camera zoom or adetection of a face close-up.

The computer program product can store instructions for: determining apredictability of the first media entity given the second media entitybased on (a) probability estimations of descriptor space representativesgiven second media entity descriptors, wherein the descriptor spacerepresentatives are representative of a set of media entities and (b)relationships between second media entity descriptors and descriptors ofthe first media entity; determining a predictability of the second mediaentity given the first media entity based on (a) probability estimationsof descriptor space representatives given first media entitydescriptors, and (b) the relationships between first media entitydescriptors and descriptors of the second media entity; and evaluating asimilarity value between the first media entity and the second mediaentity based on the predictability of the first media entity given thesecond media entity and the predictability of the second media entitygiven the first media entity.

The computer program product can store instructions for evaluating therelationships between multiple first media entities and multiple secondmedia entities based on a predictability of each first media entitygiven the multiple second media entities and a predictability of eachsecond media entity given the first media entity.

The computer program product can store instructions for clustering firstand second media entities based on the relationships between themultiple first media entities and the multiple second media entities.

The computer program product can store instructions for: receiving orgenerating (a) media class descriptors for each media entity class outof a set of media entity classes, and (b) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given each of the media entity classes;wherein the descriptor space representatives are representative of a setof media entities; and calculating, for each pair of media entity andmedia class, a predictability score based on (a) the probabilityestimations of the descriptor space representatives given the mediaclass descriptors of the media class, and (b) relationships between themedia class descriptors and the descriptor space representativesdescriptors of the media entity; and classifying each media entity basedon predictability scores of the media entity and each media class.

The computer program product can store instructions for: receiving orgenerating first media class descriptors and second media classdescriptors; wherein the first media class descriptors represent a firstmedia class of media entities that may include a first media feature;wherein the second media class descriptors represent a second mediaclass of media entities that does not comprise the first media feature;calculating a predictability score given a first media class based on(a) probability estimations of descriptor space representatives giventhe first media class descriptors, and (b) relationships between thefirst media class descriptors and descriptors of the media entity;calculating a second media class predictability score based on (a)probability estimations of descriptor space representatives given thesecond media class descriptors, and (b) relationships between the secondmedia class descriptors and descriptors of the media entity; anddetermining whether the media entity may include the feature based onthe first media class predictability score and the second media classpredictability score.

The computer program product can store instructions for searching forthe feature in multiple query media entities by repeating, for eachmedia entity of the multiple media entities, the stage of receiving orgenerating first media class descriptors and second media classdescriptors; wherein the first media class descriptors represent a firstmedia class of media entities that may include a first media feature;wherein the second media class descriptors represent a second mediaclass of media entities that does not comprise the first media feature;calculating a first media class predictability score based on (a)probability estimations of descriptor space representatives given thefirst media class descriptors, and (b) relationships between the firstmedia class descriptors and descriptors of the media entity; calculatinga second media class predictability score based on (a) probabilityestimations of descriptor space representatives given the second mediaclass descriptors, and (b) relationships between the second media classdescriptors and descriptors of the media entity; and determining whetherthe media entity may include the feature based on the first media classpredictability score and the second media class predictability score.

The computer program product can store instructions for detecting mediaentities of interest in response to a detection of the feature.

The computer program product can store instructions for searching for afeature that is a face.

The computer program product can store instructions for: applyingprobabilistic non-parametric process on the media stream to locate mediaportions of interest; and generating metadata indicative of the mediaportions of interest.

The computer program product can store instructions for adding tags tothe media portions of interest.

The computer program product can store instructions for generating arepresentation of the media stream from the media portions of interest.

The method further may include detecting media portions of interest inresponse to at least one additional parameter out of: (a) a detection ofa change of focal length of a camera that acquires the media; (b) adetection of a motion of the camera; (c) a detection of a face; (d) adetection of predefined sounds; (e) a detection of laughter; (f) adetection of predefined facial expressions; (g) a detection of anexcited voice, and (h) detection of predefined behavior

The computer program product can store instructions for generating atrick play media stream that may include the media portions of interest.

The computer program product can store instructions for finding mediaportions of interest that are similar to each other.

The computer program product can store instructions for tagging mediaportions of interest that are similar to each other.

The computer program product can store instructions for editing themedia stream based on the media portions of interest.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification.The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation,together with objects, features, and advantages thereof, may best beunderstood by reference to the following detailed description when readwith the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a system according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a system and its environment according to anembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a method according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a pre-processing block according to an embodiment ofthe invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a query block according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 6 illustrates a similarity block according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a classification block according to an embodiment ofthe invention;

FIG. 8 illustrates a clustering block according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 9 illustrates a SalienSee block according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 10 illustrates a detection block according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 11 illustrates an editing process according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 12 illustrates a system and its environment according to anembodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 13-17 illustrate methods according to an embodiment of theinvention.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale.For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggeratedrelative to other elements for clarity. Further, where consideredappropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures toindicate corresponding or analogous elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that thepresent invention may be practiced without these specific details. Inother instances, well-known methods, procedures, and components have notbeen described in detail so as not to obscure the present invention.

The illustrated methods, systems and computer program products mayprovide a comprehensive solution to the problems of browsing, searchingediting and producing personal video, by utilizing automatic image andvideo content analysis. In contrast to previous related art, themethods, systems and computer program products may identify all therequired aspects of the problem and thereby provides a completesolution.

The term media entity refers to information representative of visualinformation, information representative of audio information or acombination thereof. Non-limiting examples of a media entity may includean image, a video stream, an access unit, multiple images, a portion ofan image, a portion of a video stream, a transport packet, a elementarystream, a packetized elementary stream, an audio stream, an audio frame,any combination of audio representative information.

Any reference to a method should be interpreted as a reference to asystem and additionally or alternatively as a reference to a computerprogram product. Thus, when describing a method is it noted that themethod can be executed by a system or by a computer that executesinstructions of the computer program product.

Any reference to a system should be interpreted as a reference to amethod executed by the system and additionally or alternatively as areference to a computer program product. Thus, when describing a systemis it noted that the system can execute a method or can executeinstructions of the computer program product.

Any reference to a block can include a reference to a hardware block, asoftware block or a stage of a method. Thus, for example, any of theblocks illustrated in FIG. 4-9 can be regarded as method stages.

The methods, systems and computer program products may provide a unifiedand generic approach—the media predictability framework—for handling thenumerous capabilities required for a comprehensive solution.

Thus, instead of multiple ad hoc modules and partial solutions, themethods, systems and computer program products may provide provides asingle coherent approach to tackle the entire problem.

The methods, systems and computer program products can be applied indiverse technological environments.

Methods, systems and computer program products may provide acomprehensive solution for using personal video as they enablesbrowsing, searching editing and production of personal video.

The methods, systems and computer program products may rely on a unifiedautomated media content analysis method, instead of relying on numerousmethods for implementing the long list of features required for ‘mediaunderstanding’. The proposed method relies on a unified content analysisplatform that is based on the Media Predictability Framework (discussedin the next section), which forms the technological foundation of theproduct.

In this section we discuss the various type of meta-data (and their use)obtained using analysis with the media predictability framework.

The processing of media entities may involve running software componentson various hardware components and the processing of data files inseveral internet locations. We use the following entities in the textbelow:

User Computer: A computer with general computing capabilities such asDesktop, Laptop, Tablet, Media Center, Smartphone.

Personal Media: Images and Video of any common format (e.g., For images:Jpeg, Tiff, Gif, Jpeg2000 etc. For Video: Avi, wmv, mpeg-4, QuickTimeetc.)

Private Data and Meta-Data Database: Binary and Textual data andmeta-data kept in tables and files either as a flat databaseorganization or as a relational database (e.g., MySql).

Interaction Server: An online server (either dedicated or in a computingcloud) which handles at least one of: uploading of user media,streaming, recording usage and viewing analytics, handling user andvisitor interaction and registration, handling online payment, storageof online data and meta-data, selecting ads per viewed video and peruser/visitor.

Content Analysis Server: A server which performs content analysis foruploaded user media (user video including audio, user images, userselected soundtrack)

Production Server: A server, which utilizes the original footage and theanalyzed meta-data to create various personalized and stylized videoproductions. This server may utilize professional video creativesoftware such as Adobe After Effects, Sony Vegas etc. to render thevideo production (e.g., video effects and transitions).

Online Data and Meta-Data Database: An online database, which containsBinary and Textual data and meta-data kept in tables and files either asa flat database organization or as a relational database (e.g., MySql).

User Interface Application: A standalone application or web application(runs inside a web browser) or a software widget or software gadgetwhich enables the user to (at least one of) play, view, browse, search,produce, upload, broadcast and share his personal media.

Mobile Application: An application designed for a mobile device (e.g.,Cellular application, iPad application etc.). This application is aspecialized user interface application for the respective mobile device.

Local Player—A mini-version of the User Interface Application withreduced capabilities, which runs locally on the user/visitor computingdevice using a playing platform (e.g., Flash, Silverlight, HTML5).

Electronic Media Capturing Device—An electronic device which can capturepersonal image and/or video such as: Camcorder, Still Camera,Camera-phone, Internet Camera, Network Camera, Camera embedded in UserComputer (e.g., Laptop) etc.

‘My Video; My Pictures’ any set of file directories or libraries whichreside on the user computer (e.g, on a Hard drive, or anyelectro-magnetic or optical media such as DVD, CD, Blue-Ray disk,Flash-Memory etc.) or on the user online folders (e.g., DropBox) andwhich stores the user personal media or shared media.

FIG. 1 illustrates a interaction server 10, a user computer 20 and imageacquisition devices 31-33 according to an embodiment of the invention.

The user provides acquired media from image acquisition devices such ascamcorder 31, camera-phones 32, digital still camera 33 etc. The mediacan be stored in a private database 21 of the user computer 20 and/or beloaded to the interaction server 10.

If the user stores the media on the user computer 20, the contentanalysis engine 22 of the user computer 20 analyzes the media usingdatabase accesses to a database 23 of the user computer 20. The database 23 can store private data and private meta-data of the user.Another database 11 (also referred to as on-line database) can storedata and meta-data shared by multiple users. The other database 11 and acontent analysis server 12 belong to the interaction server 10.

The analysis results of the content analysis engine 22 or of the contentanalysis server 12 can be stored in either one of the databases 11 and23—based on, at least, a selection of a user.

The user can directly upload media to the interaction server 10. In thiscase, the media is stored on the online database 11 and be analyzed bythe content analysis server 12. The resulting data and meta-data can bestored on the Online database 11. Another option for the user is to usea combination of the approaches above: Uploading to the Interactionserver, downloading and synchronizing to the user computer andprocessing in the Content Analysis Engine.

FIG. 2 illustrates an interaction between a interaction server 10, theuser computer 20, a mobile network 50 and the Internet 60 according toan embodiment of the invention.

The user can interact using a User Interface (UI) Application whichmight be a standalone application or a web application in a web browser.Using this UI the user can search, browse, produce and broadcast hispersonal media (stored on the user computer 30). The UI may get inputfrom the original user media (e.g., on ‘My Video/My Pictures or otheruser media locations) with the extracted data and meta-data from theprivate and online databases 11, 15, 21 and 23. For instance, even ifthe user computer 20 has no private database, the user can still searchand browse the online databases 11 and 13 using the UI. Using the MobileApplication UI 60 the user can search and browse the data on theinteraction server 10 (according to his user privacy settings) frommobile platform (e.g., Cellular phones, iPad). Users as well as Visitorscan view, browse and search media on the Interaction server using the‘Local Player’ (e.g., Flash Player embedded in HTML pages) which can beembedded in other web content.

Browsing

Browsing enables users to quickly find interesting information, when theusers cannot easily describe what they are seeking. For this mode ofassociative discovery, it should be easy to understand the content of avideo and to quickly navigate inside video and between semanticallyrelated video clips.

In order to support browsing the invention enables automaticallygeneration of a table of content, of intelligent preview and thumbnails,of links to “similar” video, content based fast-forwarding and spatialvideo browsing.

Table of content may be a table-of-visual content (optionallyhierarchical), which segments a video (or any other set of visualentities) to scenes with similar visual content. Note that these scenesusually cannot be separated by detecting different shots and they mightoverlap in time (e.g., the cameraman zooms in on a first context thenmoves on to a second context, then returns to the first context).

Intelligent preview and thumbnails may include a very short (e.g., 5-10seconds long) summary of the most representative portions of the video.This condensed summary enables the user to get a quick impression of thecontent in the video. It could comprise frames (storyboard), short clipsor a combination of both. Such short representation can be even used asan intelligent thumbnail that plays the video preview when the userselects it (e.g., mouse hovers over thumbnail).

Link to “similar” video—may include a list of related video and images,where relatedness is determined according to direct visual similarity aswell as semantic similarity of the visual content: similar persons,similar objects, similar place, similar event, similar scene, similartime. The link can either point to an entire clip or to a time frame init. Such links enable associative browsing when the user in not seekinga specific content.

Content-based fast forward. Viewing personal video may become a boringtask very quickly, as real-life activity tends to repeat itself.Content-based fast-forward enables the user to fast forward to the nextnovel activity (with different actions, behavior, etc'). This capabilityis executed either by adapting the speedup to the (automaticallydetermined) degree of interest or by jumping to the next interestingsegment in the video.

Spatial Video Browsing. In many video shots, the camera wanders aroundwhile scanning the area of interest. Spatial Browsing enables the userto freeze time and simulate spatial browsing with the camera. Namely, inresponse to a request from the user to move the camera (via keyboard,mouse or touch screen) the viewed image will change to an image with theproper camera point of view.

Searching

The Search engine enables the users to quickly retrieve informationaccording to a given criterion. Searching can be done using a visual ortextual query. In order to enable searching the method enables deep,frame-based indexing, automatic tagging and keywords and criterion basedsearch.

Deep, frame-based indexing—The method creates an index of objects,actions, faces, facial expressions, type of sound, places and people.Objects includes among many possible options pets, cars, computers,cellular phones, books, paintings, TV, tables, chairs etc. The indexingincludes the extraction of new entities, comparing them to knownentities (e.g., a known face) and keeping an index item for them. Theindex can be associated with a frame, a video segment or with the entirevideo clip.

Automatic Tagging and Keywords—The method clusters repeating entities(e.g., a repeating face) and generates a tag from it. A tag has a visualrepresentation (e.g., image of a face) and a textual tag (e.g., name ofa person). The user can name a visual tag. Each frame has a list of tagsand each video has a list of the most important (frequent) tags. Theuser can add his own tags to the automatically generated tags. When atag has a semantic meaning (e.g., ‘dog’ as opposed to ‘Rexy’) the methodrelates the semantic meaning of the tag to other synonym keywordsenabling easier textual search.

Criterion based Search—The user can search by a query combining freetext, visual and textual tags. The method finds the video or the imagesthat are most relevant to the query. For instance, the user can select apicture of a person's face, select the textual tag ‘living-room’ and addfree text ‘birthday party’ (which is used as a keyword).

Automatic Editing and Production—In order to support sharing andbroadcasting of personal video the raw video should be edited andproduced automatically (or with minimal user interaction). The methodmay enable at least one of the following: (a) Automatic Editing of Videoand Images; (b) Semi-Automatic Editing of Video and Images; (c)Automatic Video production of selected clips; (d) AutomaticInterpretation of user directives; (e) Manual Post Production; (f)Personalized Production; (g) Professional Production; (h) AutomaticMovie “Trailer”; (i) Automatic Content Suggestions; (j) Automatic Newsand Updates; (k) Automatic Group and Event Suggestions; (l)Graphics-Video interaction; (m) Return to original video; (n) Uploadingand Broadcasting: and (o) Documentary web-pages.

Automatic Editing of Video and Images—The method automatically selectsand edits clips and images from raw video and images input, in order tocreate a shorter video summary. The automatic editing relies on variousfactors for choosing the most important parts: Faces, knownpersons/objects, camera motion/zoom, video and image quality, actionsaliency, photo-artistic quality, type of voice/sound, facial expression(e.g., smile).

As a part of the editing process, the image quality is improved usingde-noising, video stabilization and super-resolution. The automaticediting can change the speed of a video (e.g., slow motion/fast motion)or even convert a video clip to an image if, for instance, the clip istoo short. Another case for converting video clip to image, is when thecamera pans and the automatic editing decides to create a mosaic imagefrom the clip.

The user can select a sound track to add to the edited video. Priormeta-data and analysis on the audio track might affect the automaticediting decisions (e.g., fast pace, short clips for high tempo audiotrack). The automatic editing is generating the selected clips (andimages) to fit a video length specified by the user (e.g., 45 seconds).

Semi-Automatic Editing of Video and Images—The user can modify theresulting automatic editing by the following operations:

Removing an unwanted clip

Adding a suggested clip (from an automatically prepared candidate list)

Selecting one of more faces to be emphasized or excluded from the editedvideo. This lists of faces is automatically extracted from the video andcan be displayed to the user using a graphical user interface similar tothe figure below.

Other types of object or tagged entities can be similarly removed oremphasized (e.g. emphasizing a certain location).

FIG. 11 illustrates a process of editing a video entity.

Symbols representing media entity portions of interest 220, media entityportions that may be of interest 230 (but may have a lower importancelevel), features 240 (such as faces of persons) and feature attributes250 can be displayed to the user. The user can select which media entityportions to include in an edited media entity and can, additionally oralternatively, indicate an attribute such as an importance level offeatures. An attribute can reflect a preference of a user—forexample—whether the feature is important or not, a level of importanceof the feature, or any other attribute that may affect an editing thatis responsive to the attribute.

According to an embodiment of the invention, an editing process caninclude one or more iterations. The user can be presented with mediaentity portions of interest, features, and even an edited media entityand receive feedback from the user (whether to alter the edited mediaentity, which features are more important or less important, addingmedia entity portions of interest, defining a level of interest thatshould allow an media entity of interest to be considered as a candidateto be included in an edited media entity, and the like.

These inputs are provided to any of the mentioned above blocks or systemthat may edit the edited media entity in response. The importance levelprovided by the user is taken into account during the editing—as imagesthat may include a feature that was requested by the user will me morelikely be included in the edited media entity.

Automatic Video production of selected clips—The selected clips andimages can be used in a straightforward manner to create a video clipsummary. However, the method can also provide a much more compellingautomatically produced video clip. The automatic production makes use ofa library of effects, transitions, graphic assets and sound tracks,which are determined according to the video and the extracted meta-data.For instance, an algorithm can choose to use a face-morphing transitioneffect between two clips, where the first clip ends in a face and thesecond clip starts in a different face. Another example is to use aneffect where the frame is moving in the direction of the camera motion.

Automatic Interpretation of user directives—The user can act as adirector during the filming of the video and perform various predefinedgestures, in order to guide the later automatic editing and productionstage. For instance, a user can indicate that he would like to create amosaic by passing a finger from one side of the camera to the other andthen panning slowly. Another example is that a user signals that he hasjust captured an important clip that should pop up in any editing by aspecial gesture (e.g. making ‘V’ with the fingers). In this manner, thesystem can identify user gestures and enables the user to act as thedirector of the automatic summarization in vivo.

Manual Post Production—The user can watch the resulting production andcan intervene to override automatic decision. For instance, the user canremove or add clips from a candidate list of clips using a simplecheckbox interface. In addition, the user can change the starting pointand end point of each selected clip. Moreover, user can change thetransitions if he likes, in a post production stage.

Personalized Production—besides manual post editing, the user can affectthe automatic production and editing stages using a search query, whichemphasizes the parts in the video, which are important to the user. Thequery can take the form of a full search query (text+tags+keywords). Forinstance, a query of the form ‘Danny jumping in the living room’ wouldput more emphasize in the editing and the production stages on partswhich fit the query. Another example is of a query which uses a visualtag describing a pet dog and a location tag with an image of the backyard. Another option for the user to affect the editing stage is bydirectly marking a sub-clip in the video which must appear in theproduction. Yet another example is that the user marks several people(resulting from Face Clustering and Recognition) and gets severalproductions, each production with the selected person highlighted in theresulting clip, suitable for sharing with that respective person.

Professional Production—The method allows an additional, professionalhuman editing and production. The method delivers the raw video, theextracted meta-data and the automatically produced video to professionalproducers (via internet or via a delivery service using DVDs etc.).After the professional editing, the user receives a final product (e.g.,produced DVD) via mail or delivery. Such a professional production cancomplement the automatic production when professional quality is needed(e.g., for souvenirs, presents). Alternatively, the method can exportthe automatic editing and the respective meta-data to common videoediting formats (e.g., Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut).

Automatic Movie “Trailer”—The method described above for editing andproduction of video can be used to create an automatic movie trailer forevery video in the user library. This is a produced version of the videopreview, which can be served as the default version for sharing a singlevideo. This “Trailer” can also be used as a short version for variouskinds of user generated content (even if not personal), for instance forautomatic “Trailers” of popular YouTube videos for users who prefer toview the highlight before viewing the entire video.

Automatic Content Suggestions—The method automatically suggests to theuser edited video clips which are suitable for sharing. For instance,after the video from a recent trip was loaded to the user computer, themethod automatically produces the relevant data and suggests it to theuser, who can decide to share the suggestion by a simple approval of thesuggestion.

Automatic News and Updates—The method uses the extracted meta-data toautomatically find shared video and images which might interest theuser. For instance, the method can suggest to the user to view a videoin one of his friend's shared content in which he participates. In thismanner, a user can be informed of visual information, which may be ofinterest to him, even if he did not upload the video by himself.

Automatic Group and Event Suggestions—The method uses the extractedmeta-data and discovered similarities between user data and shared datato propose formation of groups of people (e.g., close family, tripfriends) and event suggestions (e.g., trip, party, birthday). In thismanner, shared media entities, which can be clustered with other media,can be grouped in a semi-automatic manner (with user approval). Inaddition, the method can suggest producing personalized summaries ofevents—for instance, generating a different summary for each chosenparticipant in which this participant is highlighted in the generatedsynopsis. Such personalized summaries can encourage event and groupparticipants to add their own media from the event, remix the resultsand so on. This can promote the building a large media pool of an eventor a group.

Graphics-Video interaction—The method enables to add a layer ofgraphic-video interaction, based on the extracted meta-data. Forinstance, a conversation bubble can track a person's head or face.Another example is of a graphic sprite interacting with the video (e.g.,a fly added as a graphic layer to the video and which avoids a person ashe moves in the clip). This added layer can be disabled by the user.

Return to original video—The method enables the user to return to theoriginal video clip from any point in the produced video bydouble-clicking (or tapping in touch screen) the display in that point.

Uploading and Broadcasting—The method enables the user to upload theproduced video and related meta-data to a video storage site, whichenables to embed the video to be streamed via a video player (e.g.,Flash Player) in various internet locations including: email, socialnetworks, blog sites, home pages, content management systems, image andvideo sharing sites.

Documentary web-pages—The method enables the user to create documentaryweb pages, which are dedicated for a certain entity such as event,person, group and object. For example, creating a web page of a child,where video clips and images of the child are kept, documenting thechild at different stages of his life. Another example is a pagedocumenting a party where all participating users are invited to viewcurrent productions, upload their footage of the party, invite furtherparticipants and use all uploaded footage to create new productions (andso on). A different example is a web page documenting a user's trips inthe world. Yet another important example is a memorial page dedicated tothe memory of a deceased person. The system can automatically detect newvideos or images that are relevant to the documentary page, and add themto the page via approval of the user. This web page can be organized asan album or as a storyboard, and can be accompanied with annotations andtext that was inserted automatically (using the meta-data) or by theuser.

FIG. 3 illustrates a method 300 according to an embodiment of theinvention.

Method 300 may start by stage 302 or 304. These stages are followed by asequence of stages 310, 320, 330, 340, 350 and 360.

Stage 302 includes selecting, by a user, clips and images to be includedin the production, a time limit and an optional query for indicatingimportance for the editing stage.

Stage 304 includes selecting, by the content analysis server or contentanalysis engine, clips and images automatically to be used in a proposedproduction

Stage 310 includes completing, by the content analysis server or thecontent analysis engine, any unfinished analysis (if any) for therequested media

Stage 320 includes using the ImportanSee measure and other meta-dataproperties to automatically provide at least one video editing proposal

Stage 330 includes adding, automatically, production graphics to thevideo according to the meta-data. Optionally suggesting by theproduction graphics, an audio track to add to the production

Stage 340 includes presenting the results to the user. The results mayinclude clip selection, additional media clip/images proposals (whichare currently out of the production), and relevant graphical effects.Optionally also previewing by the user the current production.

Stage 350 includes adapting the selection: changing start/end points,selected clips, audio track etc.

Stage 360 includes saving video production compilation in meta-data DBand produce video after obtaining user approval.

The Media Predictability Framework

The long list of features above is very difficult to implement in an adhoc manner. Instead, the proposed method relies on a unified mediacontent analysis platform, which we denote as the media predictabilityframework. In this framework, we measure to what extent a query media(visual or audio) entity is predictable from other reference mediaentities and use it to derive meta-data on this query entity: Forinstance, if a query media is un-predictable given the reference media,we might say that this media entity is interesting or surprising. We canutilize this measurement, for example, to detect interesting parts in amovie by seeking for video segments that are unpredictable in thismanner from the rest of the video. In addition, we can use the mediapredictability framework to associate between related media entities.For example, we can associate a photo of a face with a specific personif this photo is highly predictable from other photos of that person.

In the sections below, we first describe the theoretical foundations ofthe media predictability framework, then detail the implementation ofthe media analysis building blocks using this framework. Lastly, wedescribe how to implement the diverse features above, providing acomprehensive solution for personal video using the media analysisbuilding blocks.

A Non Parametric Approach for Determining Media Predictability

The predictability framework is a non-parametric probabilistic approachfor media analysis, which is used by our method as a unified frameworkfor all the basic building blocks that require high-level mediaanalysis: Recognition, Clustering, Classification, SalienSee Detection,etc'. We will first describe in detail the predictability framework andthen show how to derive from it the different building blocks.

Generally speaking, the predictability measure is defined as follows:Given a query media entity d and a reference media entity C(e.g.—portions of images, videos or audio) we say that d is predictablefrom C if the likelihood P(d|C) is high, and un-predictable if it islow. In this section we describe how to actually compute thispredictability score in a unified manner, regardless of the application.

Descriptor Extraction

In this subsection we describe how to extract descriptors for a mediaentity.

A specific case of media descriptors is image descriptors. Each imagedescriptor describes a patch or region of interest or arbitrarily shapedregion in the image (this can also be the entire image). One of the mostinformative image descriptors is the Daisy descriptor (Fua 2008) whichcomputes a gradient image, and then, for each sample point, produces alog-polar sampling (of size 200) of the gradient image around this point(a detailed description is given in (Fua 2008)). Video descriptorsdescribe space-time regions (e.g. x-y-t cube in a video). Examples ofvideo descriptors include, raw space-time patches or concatenating Daisydescriptors applied on several consecutive frames (e.g. −3 frames,yielding a descriptor of length 200×3=600 around each sample point).However, there are many types of descriptors, known in the literature,that capture different aspects of the media, such as—simple imagepatches, shape descriptors (See for example (G. Mori, S. Belongie, andJ. Malik 2005)), color descriptors, motion descriptors, etc. Informationfrom different types of descriptors can be fused to produce betterpredictability estimation.

Similar to visual descriptors, audio can also be analyzed using audiodescriptors. Some audio descriptors that are popular in the literatureare MFCC, PLP, or the short-time spectrum. Audio descriptors can bespecialized for speech representation, music representation, or generalsound analysis. These descriptors can be computed, for example, usingopen source tools such as the CMU sphinx(http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/). Although each media has its ownvery different descriptor type, our predictability framework isapplicable to all descriptor and media types.

FIG. 4 illustrates a pre-processing block 40 according to an embodimentof the invention.

The pre-processing block 40 receives reference media entities 101 and aset of media data and outputs reference media descriptors 103 that canbe stored in a media descriptors database.

The pre-processing block 40 processes the reference media entities 101by a descriptor extractor 44 to provide a descriptor set of thereference media entities. The pro-processing block 40 generates (bydescription extractor 41 and representative extractor 42) a descriptorspace representatives of the set of media data 102. The descriptor setof the reference media entities and the descriptor space representativeare fed to a likelihood estimator 45 that outputs the reference mediadescriptors 103.

Descriptor Extraction: Given a reference set of media entities C, wefirst compute a set of descriptors over a set of sampling points. Thesampling points can be a uniform dense sampling of the media (forexample, a grid in an image) or only at points of interest (e.g.—cornersin image). Let {f₁ ^(c), . . . , f_(K) ^(c)} denote the set ofdescriptors computed for the media reference C.

Descriptor-Space Representatives: Given a set of media entities (can bethe reference media itself), the descriptors for these entities areextracted. Next, the representative set is extracted from the fulldescriptor set in the following manner. A random sampling of thedescriptor can be used to generate representative, butvector-quantization might also be used (for example—using mean-shift ork-means quantization, etc').

Density Estimation: Given both the descriptor-space representatives {q₁,. . . , q_(L)}, and the descriptor set extracted from the referenceC−{f₁ ^(c), . . . , f_(K) ^(c)} the next step is likelihood estimation.{f₁ ^(c), . . . , f_(K) ^(c)} is an empirical sampling from theunderlying probability distribution of the reference. In this step, weestimate the log likelihood log P(q_(i)) of each representative q_(i) inthis empirical distribution. Several non-parametric probability densityestimation methods exist in the literature. The Parzen estimation of thelikelihood is given by:

${\hat{p}( {{q_{i}f_{1}^{C}},\ldots \mspace{14mu},f_{K}^{C}} )} = {\frac{1}{K}{\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{K}{K( {q_{i},f_{j}^{C}} )}}}$

where K(·) is the Parzen kernel function (which is a non-negativeoperator and integrates to 1;

A common kernel is the Gaussian kernel: (q_(i), f_(j)^(c))=exp(s∥q_(i)−f_(j) ^(c)∥²)) with s representing a fixed kernelwidth. The set of descriptor-representatives {q₁, . . . , q_(L)}together with their corresponding likelihoods {P(q₁), . . . , P(q_(L))}and the original descriptors {f₁ ^(c), . . . , f_(K) ^(c)} are used toconstruct the Media Descriptors Data-base, which is used in the queryblock.

FIG. 5 illustrates a query block 50 according to an embodiment of theinvention.

The query block 50 receives a query media entity (d) 104, referencemedia descriptors from reference descriptor database and outputs apredictability score P(d|C) 54. The query block 50 includes adescription extractor 51, a set (1 to K) of descriptor likelihoodestimators 52(1)-52(k) and a combination unit 53.

Descriptor Extraction 51: Given a query media entity d, we first computea set of descriptors {f₁ ^(d), . . . , f_(N) ^(p)} over a set ofsampling points (similar to the descriptor extraction step of thepre-processing block).

In addition, each descriptor is attached with a weight m_(i) of itssample point, which can be user defined. Commonly, we use uniformweights, but other weighting schemes can be used: for example, giving alarger weight to a region of interest (e.g. a ROI in an image whichgives a weight of 1 to all descriptors inside the ROI, and zerooutside).

Media likelihood Estimation 52(1)-52(K): For each descriptor f_(i) ^(d),the log-likelihood logP(f_(i) ^(d)|C) is estimated, where C is thereference media. The log-likelihood of each descriptor can be estimatedin the following way:

log P(f _(i) ^(d) |C)=w ₁ log P(q ₁)+ . . . +w _(L) log P(q _(L)),(Σw_(k)=1)

Where P (q_(k)) are pre-computed values extracted from the referencemedia descriptor database, w_(k) are interpolation weights which aredetermined as a function of the distance of f_(i) ^(d) from q_(k). Thesimplest weighting scheme is linear, by setting w_(k)∝∥f_(i)^(d)−q_(k)∥⁻¹. This estimation can be approximated by taking only thefirst few nearest neighbors representatives, and setting w_(k) to zerofor the rest of the representatives.

More generally, the log-likelihood logP(f_(i) ^(d)|C) can be estimatedusing a non-linear function of the representative log-likelihood valuesand the distances from them:

log P(f _(i) ^(d) |C)=F({log P(q ₁), . . . ,log P(q _(L)),∥f _(i) ^(d)−q ₁ ∥, . . . ,∥f _(i) ^(d) −q _(L)})

Combination: All the likelihoods of the different descriptors arecombined to a predictability score of the entire query media entity d.The simplest combination is a weighed sum of the log-likelihoodestimations:

PredictabilityScore(d|C)=Σm _(i)·log P(f _(i) ^(d) |C).

Where m_(i) are the sample point weights mentioned above. If we havemultiple types of descriptors (referred below as aspects), {f₁₁ ^(d), .. . , f_(N1) ^(d)}, . . . , {f_(1R) ^(d), . . . , f_(NR) ^(d)} (I.e.—Rdifferent descriptor types or R aspects), the combined score becomes:

PredictabilityScore(d|C)=Σ_(r=1) ^(R)α_(r)Σ_(i=1) ^(N) m _(i)·log P(f_(ir) ^(d) |C)

Where α_(r) are weights of each aspect (they can be determined manuallyor automatically from a training set).

More generally, dependencies between the different descriptor types canbe taken into account by setting:

F _(Q)=[(Σ_(i=1) ^(N) m _(i)·log P(f _(i1) ^(d) |C))^(0.5), . . .,(Σ_(i=1) ^(N) m _(i) ·F(f _(iR) ^(d) |C))^(0.5)]

And:

PredictabilityScore(d|C)=F _(Q) ^(T) *A*F _(Q)

Where A encapsulates the dependencies between the different descriptortypes (a diagonal matrix A will yield the previous formula, while takingthe covariance matrix estimated empirically will yield the generalformula).

Empirical Predictability Improvement.

The predictability score can be further improved using empiricalpost-processing.

Specifically, given a single media entity d, sometimes thepredictability scores for several media references PredictabilityScore(d|C₁), . . . , PredictabilityScore(d|C_(S)) are dependent.

As a result, comparing between different reference media sets can beimproved by empirically estimating the distribution of thepredictability score over a “training” set. This training set aims torepresent the set of queries, so it is best (if possible) to draw itrandomly from the query set. Note that the distribution that we aretrying to estimate now is simply the distribution of the predictabilityscores of a media entity given a set of references C₁, . . . C_(S) (notethat this generated a new “feature” vector of dimension S forrepresenting the query media). A straightforward approach is to use thenon-parametric Parzen estimation, which has been described earlier, orrecursively using our non-parametric likelihood estimation.

Media Analysis Building Blocks

In this section we describe how to derive each building block using themedia predictability framework. The text below refers to the case ofusing a single aspect but the same approach holds for multiple aspects.

FIG. 6 illustrates a similarity block 60 according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

The similarity block 60 (also referred to as a similarity buildingblock) is used to quantify the similarity between two media entitiesM1,M2. To do so, we use each media entity twice: once as a reference,and once as a query.

Referring to FIG. 6, the similarity block 60 receives a first mediaentity 111 and a second media entity 112. The first media entity isprovided to a pre-processing block 61 (when used as a reference) thatextracts first media entity descriptor space representatives that arefed (in addition to the second media entity) to a query block 50. Thequery block 50 outputs a predictability score of the second media entitygiven the first media entity.

The second media entity is provided to a pre-processing block 61 (whenused as a reference) that extracts second media entity descriptor spacerepresentatives that are fed (in addition to the first media entity) toanother query block 50. The other query block 50 outputs apredictability score of the first media entity given the second mediaentity.

Both predictability scores are fed to a unification unit 53 that outputssimilarity(M1, M2) 65.

In more details:

A descriptor database is constructed from each media entity (using thepre-processing block—as was shown in the pre-processing section of thepredictability framework).

The predictability PredictabilityScore (M₁|M₂) of media entity M₁ giventhe media entity M₂ as a reference is computed using the query block (asshown in the query section of the predictability framework).

Similarly, the predictability PredictabilityScore (M₂|M₁) of mediaentity M₂ given the media entity M₁ as a reference is computed.

The two predictability scores are combined to produce a singlesimilarity measure. As a combination function, one can use any bimodaloperator according to the specific application, such as the ‘average’ orthe ‘max’ operators.

The “Classification” Building Block

FIG. 7 illustrates a classification building block 70 according to anembodiment of the invention. The classification building block is alsoreferred to as classification block.

The classification building block is used to classify a media entityinto one of several classes. To do so, we collect a set of mediaentities that relates to each class, construct a media descriptor DBfrom each reference class, and compare the query media to all of themusing the query building block.

The classification block 70 receives reference media entities of eachclass out of multiple media classes—C1 120(1)-120(N).

A query media entity d 104 and reference media entities of each classare fed to N query blocks 50—each query block receives the query mediaentity d and one of the reference media entities of a class—separatequery blocks receive reference media entities of different classes. Eachquery block 50 outputs a predictability score of the query media entitygiven the media entity class. A classification decision block 72classifies the query media entity to one or these classes based on thepredictability scores.

In more details:

For each class C_(i), an example set of media entities relating to thisclass is selected.

For each set of entities, a descriptor database D B_(i) is constructedusing the pre-processing block—as was shown in the pre-processingsection of the predictability framework.

The predictability PredictabilityScore(d|C_(i)) of the query mediaentity d given each class is estimated using the query block (as shownin the query section of the predictability framework).

Finally, the predictability scores are entered into the classificationdecision block, which outputs the classification of d (Note that theclassification doesn't necessarily have to be a hard decision on asingle class, but it can be the posterior probability of d to belong toeach class). The simplest decision rule is setting the classification ofd to be the class C for which the predictability score of d given C isthe highest. But other decision rules are also possible—for example,computing posterior probabilities (given the prior probabilities of eachclass). In addition, the distribution of the predictability scores givenall (or subset) of the classes can be estimated using a “training” set.(A simple way to do it is using the non-parametric Parzen estimation, asdescribed earlier). With this empirical distribution estimation, theprobability of classifying d with each class can now be determineddirectly from the distribution, providing “Empirically Corrected”probabilities.

The “Detection” Building Block

The classification block can operate as a detection block. Assuming thata certain feature is being searched in a query media stream. Onereference media entity class is selected as including the feature asanother reference media entity class is selected as not including thefeature. The query media entity and these two media entity classes arefed to the classification block that classifies the query media entityas being included in one of these media classes-a s including thefeature or not including the feature. It is noted that more than twomedia classes can be provided and may include different associationswith the feature (not just a binary relationship of including or notincluding the feature).

FIG. 10 illustrates a decision block according to an embodiment of theinvention. A set of media entities 160 that is pre-filtered 99 toprovide a set of candidates for searching the feature within. The set ofcandidates and two classes of reference examples 162 and 164 areprovided to a classification block 98 that decides whether the featureexists in the candidates. The output is a list of detections 97 thatindicates in which candidates the feature appears.

The detection building block is used to detect some pre-defined class(for example—face detection, or a detection of some specific person)inside a set of media entities. The detection building block is actuallya special case of the classification building block, in which the tworeference classes are the “Class” and the “Non-Class” (forexample—“Face”—“Non Face”, “Speech”—“Non-Speech”), and the set ofqueries is all the sub-segments of the media for which we would like toapply the detection—for example, a set of sub-windows in a image.

Since the classification process usually takes too much time to beapplied on all sub-segments, a pre-filtering can be applied, choosingonly a subset of the segments. For example, the cascade based Viola &Jones method is widely used for object (e.g., face) detection,outputting a set of rectangles for which a face was detected. Yet, italso outputs a large set of erroneous detections, which can be furthereliminated by the “Class”—“Non Class” detection block describe herein.See

for a schematic description of the detection building block.

The “Clustering” Building Block

The clustering building block is used to cluster a set of media entitiesinto groups. This building block is using the similarity building blockdescribed above to compute a similarity measure between pairs of mediaentities, and then use standard clustering methods to cluster theaffinity matrix.

FIG. 8 illustrates a clustering block 80 according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

The clustering block 80 includes multiple similarity blocks 60 that arefed with different media entities. During each iteration, the clusteringblocks output a similarity score between two media entities. Thesesimilarity scores can be arranged to form a similarity/affinity matrix(or any other data structure) that is fed to a clustering algorithm 81that clusters the media entities based on the similarityscores—clustering M1, . . . , MN 85.

In more details:

For each pair of media entities M_(i) and M_(j), the similarity betweenthem is computed using the similarity building block (described above).

A similarity matrix A_(ij) is computed by A_(ij)=similarity(M_(i),M_(j)). This similarity matrix forms an Affinity matrix which is acommon input for many clustering algorithms.

Finally, doing clustering from a Similarity or an Affinity matrix iswell known in the art (For example, Agglomerative hierarchicalclustering, spectral clustering (Andrew Y. Ng and Michael I. Jordan andYair Weiss 2001) or simply merging all pairs for which similarity(M_(i),M_(j))>Threshold.

The “Saliensee” building block

FIG. 9 illustrates a SalienSee block 90 according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

The SalienSee block tries to predict a portion of a media entity (It)based on previous media entity portions (I1 . . . It−1) that precede it.

An input media entity 130 that includes multiple media entity portionsis fed to the SalienSee block 90 one media entity portion after theother so that the media entity portions can be evaluated in an iterativemanner-one after the other.

At point of time t a media entity portion (It) based on previous mediaentity portions (I1 . . . It−1) that precede it.

Query block 50 receives (as a query media entity) the media entityportion It and receives (as reference descriptor space representative)descriptors space representatives of the previous media entity portions.

The query block 50 calculates a predictability score that may beregarded as a saltiness score 95, The media entity portions are also fedto a database 92. The content of the database are processed bypre-processing block 40.

The proposed method uses a new measure called “SalienSee”. It measuresthe extent by which a point in time in the media is salient in themedia. This can also indicate that this point in time is “surprising”,“unusual” or “interesting”. We say that a media entity has highSalienSee if it cannot be predicted from some reference set of mediaentities. Let d be some query media entity, and let C denote thereference set of media entities. We define the SalienSee of d withrespect to C as the negative log predictability of d given C (i.e.SalienSee(d|C)=−log Pre dictabilityS core (d|C)). Using this notation,we can say an event is unusual if its SalienSee measure given otherevents is high. For instance, the SalienSee measure can capture themoments in video in which the activity becomes boring (which is verycommon in a personal video)—for example, when someone starts jumping itmight be interesting, but the next jumps are getting more and moreboring as they are already very predictable from the past. Formally,let/(t₁, t₂) denote the time segment t₁<t<t₂ of the video clip d. We saythat the video d (t, t+δt) is ‘boring’ if its SalienSee measure withrespect to the past is small, i.e, if SalienSee(d(t,t+δt)|d(t−T,t))<S,where T, δt are some periods of time (e.g.—T is a minute, δt is asecond.

Implementing the personal video features above using the building blocks

As shown in the previous sub-section, all the basic building blocks thatare used by the proposed method can be directly implemented using themedia predictability framework. Next, we show how these building blocks(e.g., Recognition, Clustering) can be used to realize the long list offeatures, presented above, in order to enable comprehensive solution forsearching, browsing, editing and production of personal video.

Tagging: Automatic tagging of media entities is achieved by applying theDetection/Recognition building block several times. Some tags areextracted by solving a detection problem. For instance adding a tag“face” whenever the face detector detected a face in a video clip, or atag “applause” when a sound of clapping hands is detected. Other typesof tags are extracted by solving a recognition (or classification)problem. For instance, a specific person-tag is added whenever theface-recognition module classifies a detected face as a specific,previously known face. Another example is classifying a scene to be“living-room scene” out of several possibilities of pre-defined scenelocation types. The combination of many detection and recognitionmodules can produce a rich and deep tagging of the media assets, whichis valuable for many of the features described below.

The method utilizes at least some of the following tagging: face poses(“frontal”, “profile” etc.), specific persons, facial expressions(“smile”, “frown” etc.), scene-types (“living-room”, “backyard”,“seaside” etc.), behavior type (“running”, “jumping”, “dancing”,“clapping-hands” etc.), speech detection, soundtrack segment beatclassification (e.g. “fast-beat”, “medium-beat”, “slow beat”), voiceclassification (“speech”, “shout”, “giggle”, etc.). Note that the MediaPredictability Framework enables a single unified method to handlerecognition and detection problems from completely different domains(from behavior recognition to audio classification), simply by supplyingexamples from the recognized classes (whether video, image or audioexamples).

ImportanSee: our “ImportanSee” measure is used to describe theimportance or the amount of interest of a video clip for someapplication—for example, in a video summary we can display only theimportant parts while omitting the unimportant ones. In principle, thismeasure is subjective, and cannot be determined automatically. However,in many cases it can be estimated with no user intervention usingattributes such as the attributes listed below:

SalienSee—Very low saliency clips are usually boring and not important.Therefore, we can attribute low importanSee to those clips.

Camera Motion: Camera motion is an important source of information onthe intent of the cameraman. A panning of the camera usually indicatesthat the photographer is either scanning the scene (to get a panorama ofthe view), or just changing the focus of attention. Video segments thatrelates to the second option (a wandering camera) can be assigned with alow ImportanSee. A case where the camera is very shaking and notstabilized can also reduce the overall ImportanSee. The camera motioncan be estimated using various common methods (e.g. (J. R. Bergen, P.Anandan, K. J. Hanna, and R. Hingorani 1992)).

Camera Zoom: A Camera zoom-in is usually a good indication for highimportance (i.e., resulting in high ImportanSee). In many cases, thephotographer zooms in on some object of interest to get a close-up viewof the subject (or event).

Face close-up: Images or video clips in which faces appear in the sceneare usually important. Specifically, a close-up on a face (in a frontalview) will usually indicate a clear intention of the photographer tocapture the person (or persons) being photographed, and can serve as astrong cue for high importanSee.

Speech: Speech detection and recognition can help detecting interestingperiods in the video. Moreover, laughter (general, or of a child)increases the ImportanSee measure of the corresponding video segment. Anexcited voice may also be used as a cue for importanSee.

Facial expressions: Facial expressions are a good cue for highImportanSee. For instance, moments when a person smiles or a childfrowns or cries indicates a high ImportanSee.

Given a visual entity d (for example, a video segment), the attributesabove can be used to compute intermediate importance scores s₁, s_(l)(in our implementation, these scores can be negative. Such scores can beobtained by using direct measurements (e.g, SalienSee measure of aclip), or by some binary predicate using the extracted meta-data (e.g.,s=1 if clip includes a ‘large face closeup’ tag and s=0 otherwise). Thefinal ImportanSee measure is given as a weighted sum of all attributescores. I.e., ImportanSee (d)=max(Σ_(i)α_(i)s_(i), 0), where α_(i) isthe relative weights of each attribute.

Table of contents: Table of (visual) contents is a hierarchicalsegmentation of visual entities (video or set of videos and images).This feature can be implemented as a clustering of the various scenes ina video. For instance, by sampling short video chunks (e.g., 1 second ofvideo every 5 seconds of video) and clustering these media chunks (usingthe clustering building block) will produce a flat or hierarchical tableof contents of the video. In addition to this segmentation, each segmentis attached with either a textual or visual short description (forexample, a representative frame or a short clip). This representativecan be selected randomly, or according to its ImportanSee measure.

Intelligent preview and thumbnails: This is a very short (e.g., 5-10seconds long) summary of the most representative and important portionsof the video. This feature can be implemented by simply selecting thetime segments of the video with the maximal ImportanSee.

Video links and Associative browsing: This feature facilitates video andimage links, which are based on audio-visual and semantic similarity.This feature can be implemented as a combination of using the Taggingfeature and the similarity building block: The similarity building blockis used to quantify the direct audio-visual similarity between imagesand video. The Tagging feature is used to quantify the semanticassociation between media entities—for instance, two videos of birthdayparties, two videos of dogs etc. To quantify the semantic similarity,various simple distances can be used between the tag lists of each mediaentity, such as the number of mutual tags or a weighted sum of themutual tags, which emphasizes some tags over others. To quantify theoverall similarity a (weighted) sum of the semantic and audio-visualsimilarity can be used to combine the different similarity measures.Links between media entities can be formed for pairs of entities withhigh enough overall similarity.

Content-based fast forward: In Content-based fast-forward, interestingparts are displayed in a normal speed (or with a small speed-up), whileless interesting parts are skipped (or displayed very fast). This can bedone automatically using the ImportanSee measure: The speed-up of eachvideo segment d is determined as a function of its ImportanSee, I.e.speedup(d)=F(ImportanSee(d)). Two simple examples for F are F(x)=1/x andthe threshold function

${F(x)} = \{ \begin{matrix}1 & {{F(x)} > S} \\\infty & {{F(x)} \leq S}\end{matrix} $

(which is equivalent to selecting the important video segments).

Automatic Video Editing & Synopsis: The main challenge in automaticvideo editing is to automatically select the most important sub-clips inthe video, which best represent the content of the original video. Thisselection is an essential stage for most of the features that relates toautomatic video editing: creating a video synopsis (or Movie “Trailer”),video production, intelligent thumbnails, etc. This task is best servedby the ImportanSee building block (describe above)—to determine theimportance of each sub-clip in the video, and promoting the selection ofthe most important ones to be used in the edited video. Using the factthat we can compute the ImportanSee measure on any video sub-clip wedefine a video editing score for a video editing selection of clips c₁,. . . , c_(n), from a video v: score (c₁, . . . ,c_(n))=Σ_(i)ImportanSee(c_(i)).

Thus we can pose the problem of automatic video editing as anoptimization of the editing score above given some constraints (e.g.,such that the total length of all selected sub-clips is not longer thanone-minute). This is a highly non-continuous function and isbest-optimized using stochastic optimization techniques (e.g., SimulatedAnnealing, Genetic Algorithms) where the score function is used toevaluate the quality of a selection and random selection and mutation(e.g., slightly changing clip starting and ending points) enablesdiscovery of the problem-space during the optimization process.

System

FIG. 12Error! Reference source not found. illustrates a system and itsenvironment according to an embodiment of the invention. The systemimplements any of the methods described above to provide a comprehensivesolution for browsing, searching and sharing of personal video.

The system has various components which reside on several sites. Therelated sites and the components on them are described next.

User Computer 20—The user computer(Desktop, Laptop, Tablet,Media-Center, Pocket PC, Smartphone etc.) may include two databases 21and 23, content analysis engine 22 and user interface application 24.

The user computer can store a large amount of visual data in generallocations such as ‘My Video’ and ‘My Pictures’ directories in MicrosoftWindows Operation Systems. Most of the data in these locations is rawdata and yet personal.

The content analysis engine 22 may process runs in the background(optionally only during the computer idle time) or upon user request. Itanalyzes the user's visual data (videos and pictures), and extractsmeta-data using a work queue.

The work queue is filled by the content analysis engine 22 as well as bythe user selection (a user can insert any video or image to the top ofthe queue).

While the original video and images of the user may remain intact, thecontent analysis engine 22 may use the private Meta-Data DB 23 to storethe extracted meta-data and reuses this meta-data for its own analysis(e.g., extracted visual tags are stored there for future automatictagging).

In a different embodiment, the content analysis engine 22 is not asoftware installed on the user computer 20, but rather an internetbrowser plug-in or a software component (e.g., ActiveX) which enablesthe user to apply the content analysis engine 22 to run without fullsoftware installation (but a plug-in installation). In anotherembodiment of this system, there is not content analysis engine on the‘User Computer’. Instead, the user can make use of content analysisserver software (12) as a service which resides on the interactionserver 10.

The user interface application 24 lets the user apply a sub-set of themethod capabilities discussed above, thus enabling browsing, searchingand sharing of personal video. The sub-set depends on the type ofclient, license and computer. In one embodiment, this is a standaloneclient installed on the user computer. In another embodiment, this is aweb application which uses an internet browser for running the userinterface, which enables running it from any internet browser, withoutinstalling software.

Interaction Server

The interaction server 10 hosts several servers which enable users toshare personal video and images and broadcast them on various internetlocations by embedding them. The ‘User Profile’ 18 contains variousinformation about the user, such as its personal details, a list ofaccounts in various internet services, a list of friend and familymembers and usage statistics. The ‘Public Data+Meta-Data DB’ 17 containsdata that the user selected to share from the ‘User Computer’: relevantmeta-data and also video clips, images, etc. Sharing can be limited tovarious groups—family, friends, everyone etc. The database is alsoresponsible for initiating synchronization with connected ‘UserComputers’ and mobile appliances. The ‘Content Analysis Server’ 12 is apowerful version of the content analysis engine on the user computer 20which enables to process a large amount of visual data being uploaded tothe site. This enables the user to process video even from a computerthat does not have the content analysis engine installed (i.e.,SaaS—Software as a Service).

The ‘Video Platform Server’ 19 performs the actual streaming andinteraction with users and visitors that view video and images stored onthe ‘Interaction server’. It contains the actual ‘Streaming’ module 194which is responsible for the actual delivery of the video on time andwith the right quality. The ‘Interaction’ module 192 is responsible forinterpreting the user requests (e.g., press on a table of contentselement) and communicate it with the ‘Streaming’ server or the ‘LocalPlayer’. The ‘Analytics’ module 193 is responsible for recording userbehavior and response for each video and advertise that was displayed onit (e.g., number of times a video was watched, number of skips, numberof times an ad was watched till its end). The ‘Ad-Logic’ 191 usesinformation from the ‘Analytics’ module to choose the best strategy toselect an ad for a specific video and user and how to display it. Thisinformation is synchronized in real-time with the ‘Local Player’. The‘Ad-Logic’ module can instruct the ‘Local Player’ to display an ad invarious forms, including: pre-roll, post-roll, banners, floating ads,textual ads, bubble ads, ads embedded as visual objects using theextracted video meta-data (e.g., adding a Coca-Cola bottle on a table).

Internet Locations

Users and visitors can view video and images which users decided toshare on various ‘Internet Locations’ 40 that may include socialnetworks, email services, blogs, MySpace, Gmail, Drupel, Facebook andthe like. The actual viewing of video is performed by an embedded playerwhich can be based on various platforms such as Adobe Flash, MicrosoftSilverlight, HTML5 etc. The player can be embedded either directly orusing a local application (e.g., Facebook application) in variousinternet locations including: Social Networks (e.g., Facebook, Myspace),Email messages, Homepages, Sharing-Sites (e.g, Flickr, Picasa), Bloggingsites and platforms (e.g., Wordpress, Blogger) and Content ManagementSystems (e.g., Drupal, Wikimedia). Alternatively to embedding a ‘LocalPlayer’ the user can user an internet link to a dedicated video page onthe ‘Interaction server’.

Mobile Networks

Users can view and synchronize video via mobile appliances (e.g., cellphones) using the cellular networks 50 or internet networks 40. In casesthat the mobile appliance is computationally strong enough (e.g.,Pocket-PC, Smartphone) it can be regarded as a ‘User Computer’. In othercases it can use a ‘Mobile Application’ which enables to view media fromthe ‘Interaction server’ as well as uploading raw media from the mobileappliance. In this manner the ‘Mobile Application’ can use the ‘ContentAnalysis Server’ in the ‘Interaction server’ to produce and share videoeven for appliances with low computational powers. Moreover, the‘Interaction server’ can automatically synchronize uploaded content withother connected ‘User Computers’.

Movie Production

Users can select to send automatically produced media for further,professional production by human experts. The system proceeds by sendingthe relevant raw video, the extracted meta-data and the automaticallyproduced video to a professional producer 70 (via internet or via adelivery service using DVDs etc.). After the professional editing isfinished, the user receives a final product (e.g., produced DVD) viamail or delivery.

Other Electronic Appliances

In other embodiments, the system is implemented on ‘Other ElectronicAppliances’ with do not utilize general CPUs or without enoughcomputational power. In these cases, parts of the software modulesdescribed in user computer are implemented in embedded form (ASIC, FPGA,DSP etc.).

FIG. 13 illustrates method 1300 according to an embodiment of theinvention. Method 1300 is for determining a predictability of a mediaentity portion.

Method 1300 starts by stage 1310 of receiving or generating (a)reference media descriptors, and (b) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given the reference media descriptors;wherein the descriptor space representatives are representative of a setof media entities.

Stage 1310 is followed by stage 1320 of calculating a predictabilityscore of the media entity portion based on at least (a) the probabilityestimations of the descriptor space representatives given the referencemedia descriptors, and (b) relationships between the media entityportion descriptors and the descriptor space representatives.

Stage 1320 may be followed by stage 1330 of responding to thepredictability score.

Stages 1310-1330 can be repeated multiple times on multiple media entityportions.

Stage 1320 may include at least one of the following: (a) calculatingdistances between descriptors of the media entity and the descriptorspace representatives; (b) calculating a weighted sum of probabilityestimations of the descriptor space representatives, wherein weightsapplied for the weighted sum are determined according to distancesbetween descriptors of the media entity portion and descriptor spacerepresentatives; (c) generating the probability estimations given thereference media descriptors; wherein the generating comprisescalculating, for each descriptor space representative, a Parzenestimation of a probability of the descriptor space representative giventhe reference media descriptors.

According to an embodiment of the invention method 1300 may be appliedon different portions of a media entity in order to locate mediaportions of interest. Thus, stage 1320 may include calculating thepredictability of the media entity portion based on reference mediadescriptors that represent media entity portions that precede the mediaentity portion and belong to a same media entity as the media entityportion. Repeating stage 1310 and 1320 on multiple portions of the mediaentity can result in calculating the predictability of multiple mediaentity portions of the media entity and detecting media entity portionsof interest. Stage 1330 may include generating a representation of themedia entity from the media entity portions of interest.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the importance of a mediaentity portion can be determined based on additional factors. Thus,stage 1320 can be augmented to include defining a media entity portionas a media entity portion of interest based on the predictability of themedia entity portion and on at least one out of a detection of a cameramotion, a detection of a camera zoom or a detection of a face close-up.

FIG. 14 illustrates method 1400 according to an embodiment of theinvention. Method 1400 is for evaluating a relationship between a firstmedia entity and a second media entity.

Method 1400 starts by stage 1410 of determining a predictability of thefirst media entity given the second media entity based on (a)probability estimations of descriptor space representatives given secondmedia entity descriptors, wherein the descriptor space representativesare representative of a set of media entities and (b) relationshipsbetween second media entity descriptors and descriptors of the firstmedia entity.

Stage 1410 is followed by stage 1420 of determining a predictability ofthe second media entity given the first media entity based on (a)probability estimations of descriptor space representatives given firstmedia entity descriptors, and (b) the relationships between first mediaentity descriptors and descriptors of the second media entity.

Stage 1420 is followed by stage 1430 of evaluating a similarity valuebetween the first media entity and the second media entity based on thepredictability of the first media entity given the second media entityand the predictability of the second media entity given the first mediaentity.

Stage 1400 may be repeated multiple times, on multiple media entityportions. For example, it may include evaluating the relationshipsbetween multiple first media entities and multiple second media entitiesbased on a predictability of each first media entity given the multiplesecond media entities and a predictability of each second media entitygiven the first media entity.

Method 1400 can be used for clustering—by evaluating the similarityvalue of a media entity to a cluster of media entities. Thus, method1400 can include clustering first and second media entities based on therelationships between the multiple first media entities and the multiplesecond media entities.

FIG. 15 illustrates method 1500 according to an embodiment of theinvention. Method 1500 is for classifying media entities.

Method 1500 starts by stage 1510 of receiving or generating (a) mediaclass descriptors for each media entity class out of a set of mediaentity classes, and (b) probability estimations of descriptor spacerepresentatives given each of the media entity classes; wherein thedescriptor space representatives are representative of a set of mediaentities.

Stage 1510 is followed by stage 1520 of calculating, for each pair ofmedia entity and media class, a predictability score based on (a) theprobability estimations of the descriptor space representatives giventhe media class descriptors of the media class, and (b) relationshipsbetween the media class descriptors and the descriptor spacerepresentatives descriptors of the media entity.

Stage 1520 is followed by stage 1530 of classifying each media entitybased on predictability scores of the media entity and each media class.

FIG. 16 illustrates method 1600 according to an embodiment of theinvention. Method 1600 is for searching for a feature in a media entity.

Method 1600 starts by stage 1610 of receiving or generating first mediaclass descriptors and second media class descriptors; wherein the firstmedia class descriptors represent a first media class of media entitiesthat comprises a first media feature; wherein the second media classdescriptors represent a second media class of media entities that doesnot comprise the first media feature.

Stage 1610 is followed by stage 1620 of calculating a predictabilityscore given a first media class based on (a) probability estimations ofdescriptor space representatives given the first media classdescriptors, and (b) relationships between the first media classdescriptors and descriptors of the media entity.

Stage 1620 is followed by stage 1630 of calculating a second media classpredictability score based on (a) probability estimations of descriptorspace representatives given the second media class descriptors, and (b)relationships between the second media class descriptors and descriptorsof the media entity.

Stage 1630 is followed by stage 1640 of determining whether the mediaentity comprises the feature based on the first media classpredictability score and the second media class predictability score.

Stage 1640 can be followed by stage 1650 of responding to thedetermination. For example, stage 1650 may include detecting mediaentities of interest in response to a detection of the feature.

Stage 1600 can be repeated in order to detect a feature in multiplemedia entities by repeating, for each media entity stages 1610-1650.

The feature can be a face but this is not necessarily so.

FIG. 17 illustrates method 1700 according to an embodiment of theinvention. Method 1700 is for processing media streams.

Method 1700 starts by stage 1710 of applying probabilisticnon-parametric process on the media stream to locate media portions ofinterest. Non-limiting examples of such probabilistic non-parametricprocess are provided in the specification.

A non-parametric probability estimation is an estimation that does notrely on data relating to predefined (or known in advance) probabilitydistribution, but derive probability estimations directly from the(sample) data.

Stage 1710 may include detecting media portions of interest in responseto at least one additional parameter out of: (a) a detection of a changeof focal length of a camera that acquires the media; (b) a detection ofa motion of the camera; (c) a detection of a face; (d) a detection ofpredefined sounds; (e) a detection of laughter; (f) a detection ofpredefined facial expressions; (g) a detection of an excited voice, and(h) detection of predefined behavior

Stage 1710 is followed by stage 1720 of generating metadata indicativeof the media portions of interest.

Stage 1720 may include adding tags to the media portions of interest.

Stage 1720 is followed by stage 1730 of responding to the metadata.

Stage 1730 may include at least one of the following: (a) generating arepresentation of the media stream from the media portions of interest;(b) generating a trick play media stream that comprises the mediaportions of interest; (c) finding media portions of interest that aresimilar to each other; (d) tagging media portions of interest that aresimilar to each other; and (e) editing the media stream based on themedia portions of interest.

Either one of the mentioned above methods can be executed by a computerprogram product that includes a non-transitory computer readable medium.

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated anddescribed herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, andequivalents will now occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. It is,therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended tocover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spiritof the invention.

1. A method comprising: obtaining at least one user-captured footagewhich includes at least one video footage; automatically generating,based on a decision function, a sequence of selected media portions,wherein at least one selected media portion is a subset of the at leastone video footage; and allowing a user to apply modification operationsto said sequence of selected media portions, wherein said modificationoperations comprise at least one of: changing at least a starting pointor an end point of at least one selected media portion of the videofootage; removing at least one of said selected media portions; andautomatically generating, based on the user modifications, anaudiovisual work comprising the selected media portions.
 2. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the at least one user-captured footagefurther comprises a plurality of still images, and wherein the selectedmedia portions further comprise one of the plurality of still images. 3.The method according to claim 1, wherein the audiovisual work furthercomprises at least one transition between two of the selected mediaportions.
 4. The method according to claim 1, further comprisingautomatically generating, prior to the modification operations by theuser, an audiovisual work comprising the selected media portions.
 5. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein said modification operationsfurther comprise adding at least one additional selected media portion.6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said modification operationsfurther comprise adding at least one additional video media portionbeing a portion of said at least one user captured video footage.
 7. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein said additional media portion isselected by a user from a second set of media portions, each mediaportion being one of the plurality of still images or a portion of theat least one video footage; and wherein this second set is automaticallygenerated based on a decision function.
 8. A method comprising:obtaining at least one user-captured footage; automatically generating,based on a decision function, a sequence of selected media portions; andallowing a user to apply modification operations to said first sequenceof selected media portions, wherein said modification operationscomprise selecting a plurality of faces to be emphasized; andautomatically generating, based on the user modifications, an editedaudiovisual work that emphasizes the selected faces.
 9. The methodaccording to claim 8, further comprising automatically generating, priorto the modification operations by the user, an initial audiovisual workcomprising the selected media portions, and wherein the emphasized facesappear more often in the edited audiovisual work than in the initialaudiovisual work.
 10. A system comprising: a computer processor; aninput device configured to obtain at least one user-captured footagewhich includes at least one video footage; and a display device, whereinthe computer processor is configured to automatically generate, based ona decision function, a sequence of selected media portions, wherein atleast one of the selected media portions is a subset of the at least onevideo footage; wherein the input device is configured to allow a user toapply modification operations to said sequence of selected mediaportions presented over the display device, wherein said modificationoperations comprise: changing at least a starting point or an end pointof at least one selected media portion of the video footage; andremoving at least one of said selected media portions, and wherein thecomputer processor is configured to automatically generate, based on theuser modifications, an audiovisual work comprising the selected mediaportions.
 11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the oneuser-captured footage further comprises a plurality of still images, andwherein the selected media portions further comprise one of theplurality of still images.
 12. The system according to claim 10, whereinthe audiovisual work further comprises at least one transition betweentwo of the selected media portions.
 13. The system according to claim10, further comprising automatically generating, prior to themodification operations by the user, an audiovisual work comprising theselected media portions.
 14. The system according to claim 10, whereinsaid modification operations further comprise adding at least oneadditional selected media portion.
 15. The system according to claim 10,wherein said modification operations further comprise adding at leastone additional video media portion being a portion of said at least oneuser captured video footage.
 16. The system according to claim 10,wherein said additional media portion is selected by a user from asecond set of media portions, each media portion being one of theplurality of still images or a portion of the at least one videofootage; and wherein this second set is automatically generated based ona decision function.
 17. A system comprising: a computer processor; aninput device configured to obtain at least one user-captured footage;and a display device, wherein the computer processor is configured toautomatically generate, based on a decision function, a first sequenceof selected media portions, wherein the input device is configured toallow a user to apply modification operations to said first sequence ofselected media portions presented over the display device, wherein saidmodification operations comprise selecting a plurality of faces to beemphasized, and wherein the computer processor is further configured toautomatically generate, based on the user modifications, an editedaudiovisual work that emphasizes the selected faces.
 18. The systemaccording to claim 17, the computer processor is further configured toautomatically generate, prior to the modification operations by theuser, an initial audiovisual work comprising the selected mediaportions; and wherein the emphasized faces appear more often in theedited audiovisual work than in the initial audiovisual work.
 19. Acomputer program product comprising: a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium having computer readable program embodied therewith, thecomputer readable program comprising: computer readable programconfigured to obtain at least one user-captured footage which includesat least one video footage; computer readable program configured toautomatically generate, based on a decision function, a sequence ofselected media portions, wherein at least one selected media portion isa subset of the at least one video footage; computer readable programconfigured to allow a user to apply modification operations to saidsequence of selected media portions presented over the display device,wherein said modification operations comprise: changing at least astarting point or an end point of at least one selected media portion ofthe video footage; and removing at least one of said selected mediaportions; and computer readable program configured to automaticallygenerate, based on the user modifications, an audiovisual workcomprising the selected media portions.
 20. A computer program productcomprising: a non-transitory computer readable storage medium havingcomputer readable program embodied therewith, the computer readableprogram comprising: computer readable program configured to obtain atleast one user-captured footage; computer readable program configured toautomatically generate, based on a decision function, a first sequenceof selected media portions, computer readable program configured toallow a user to apply modification operations to said first sequence ofselected media portions presented over the display device, wherein saidmodification operations comprise selecting a plurality of faces to beemphasized; and computer readable program configured to automaticallygenerate, based on the user modifications, an edited audiovisual workthat emphasizes the selected faces.